


A Worthy Death

by lar_laughs



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, scifiland challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-19
Updated: 2011-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-14 21:24:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lar_laughs/pseuds/lar_laughs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronon gets stuck on a planet without a way back to Atlantis.  He contemplates his past as he comes to terms with the little he has left of his future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Worthy Death

No one had ever accused Ronon Dex of being smart. Hungry? Yes. Tall? Yep, that too. Even, sometimes, funny. But never smart.

As he huddled against the base of a tree, trying to absorb every little bit of warmth from the bark, he wondered if anyone would come looking for him this time. He'd accomplished his goal and done what he'd set out to do. The only problem was that the DHD had been destroyed in the process and he had no way of getting back to Atlantis. Too bad that never happened on the planets with shelter and food and decent temperatures instead of all this snow and wind.

His teeth had stopped chattering together but only because his jaw was so tightly clenched. What would Rodney have to say about that? Surely something long and rambling that would succeed, for a little while, to give him something to think about. He never actually cared to understand anything the scientist ever said, but the irritation was always warming and would have been welcome right about now.

A fragment of a verse from his childhood came to him suddenly, along with a vision of his mother reading to him from her favorite chair by the fire.

  
_the crystal flakes  
drift and fall on  
all of us the same  
we do not see them  
appear  
we do not see them  
disappear  
yet that does not stop  
them coming_   


 

Hearing the Satedan language, even if only in his own head, made his heart start to hurt. It had been a long time since he'd taken the time to visit one of the outposts where some of his people lived. The last time had been a disappointment. Just as he was finding himself lost in Lantean customs as time went on so, too, were these people merging with the ways of the planets they now called home.

There would be no one to mourn him in the Satedan way. When his body was finally found, no one would know the proper burial techniques. He would have to mourn himself, he decided.

***

Jennifer pulled off her surgical mask. "It's a good thing you found him when you did. I was able to get his body temperature back up but I'm worried about the fingers on his right hand. They seemed to have suffered the worst of the injuries but there's a new procedure I'd like to try out. I can't guarantee the outcome but it'll be better than anything I learned about on Earth." She cleared her throat. "The incisions on his chest seem more deliberate than inflicted by the Wraith he was fighting."

Sheppard tried to think of the right words but he was struggling to explain what he and Teyla had decided had happened. "Yeah, when we found him, he was carving himself up and singing. That's how we were able to find him in the storm." He glanced at Teyla but she didn't appear to want to take over the story from him. "We think he was performing his version of last rites."

Jennifer's eyebrows almost reached to her hairline but she got herself under control. "Oh... well... do you think he'll want me to stitch those up or are they scars he might want to keep?"

"It would be best if you were able to heal them," Teyla answered, her face void of all expression although her voice coming close to cracking. "He can try dying another day."


End file.
